Method and apparatus for providing ambient social telephony

ABSTRACT

A method, non-transitory computer readable medium and apparatus for providing a communications service in a communications network are disclosed. For example, the method monitors a conference call, detects a triggering event during the conference call registered for a particular user, wherein the particular user is not a participant in the conference call, and notifies the particular user of the triggering event.

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/703,309, filed May 4, 2015 which is currently allowed and is acontinuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/286,329, filed Nov.1, 2011, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,025,752, which is herein incorporated byreference in its entirety.

The present disclosure relates generally to a new form of telephony and,more particularly, to a method and apparatus for providing ambientsocial telephony.

BACKGROUND

Social media is a growing field. Social media allows users to shareexperiences with friends and other users. However, most of the socialmedia is associated with websites. For example, many websites cater tothe social media phenomenon, such as for example, Facebook®, Twitter®,LinkedIn® and the like. Currently, there are no social media platformsfor telephony.

SUMMARY

In one embodiment, the present disclosure provides a method forproviding a communications service in a communications network. Forexample, the method monitors a conference call, detects a triggeringevent during the conference call registered for a particular user,wherein the particular user is not a participant in the conference call,and notifies the particular user of the triggering event.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The teaching of the present disclosure can be readily understood byconsidering the following detailed description in conjunction with theaccompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates one example of a communications network of thepresent disclosure;

FIG. 2 illustrates an example flowchart of one embodiment of a methodfor providing ambient social telephony in a communications network; and

FIG. 3 illustrates a high-level block diagram of a general-purposecomputer suitable for use in performing the functions described herein.

To facilitate understanding, identical reference numerals have beenused, where possible, to designate identical elements that are common tothe figures.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present disclosure broadly discloses a method, non-transitorycomputer readable medium and apparatus for providing ambient socialtelephony in a communications network. Social media is becoming apopular technology for users. Typically, Internet websites provideoutlets for hosting social media websites. Social media allows users toshare experiences with friends and other users.

However, there are no social media platforms for telephony. The closestapproach to a social media telephony experience currently is aconference call. However, present conference call technology suffersfrom a number of deficiencies, such as limited duration, no spontaneoussharing of the conference and no permanent record of the conferencingevent.

One embodiment of the present disclosure provides a telephony platformfor providing a social media outlet via ambient social telephony overany type of communications network including, for example, an internetprotocol (IP) communications network, a cellular telephone network, atraditional circuit switched network, and the like. For example, when atopic of interest is detected in a conference call, a user may benotified by sending a short message service (SMS) message, an email, atext message, an automated telephone call, and the like, to their userendpoint device. As a result, users may use telephony as one platformfor enjoying the benefits of social media.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram depicting one example of a communicationsnetwork 100. The communications network 100 may be any type ofcommunications network, such as for example, a traditional circuitswitched network (e.g., a public switched telephone network (PSTN)) oran IP network (e.g., an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) network, anasynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, a wireless network, a cellularnetwork (e.g., 2G, 3G and the like), a long term evolution (LTE)network, and the like) related to the current disclosure. It should benoted that an IP network is broadly defined as a network that usesInternet Protocol to exchange data packets. Additional exemplary IPnetworks include Voice over IP (VoIP) networks, Service over IP (SoIP)networks, and the like.

In one embodiment, the network 100 may comprise a core network 102. Thecore network 102 may be in communication with one or more accessnetworks 120 and 122. The access networks 120 and 122 may include awireless access network (e.g., a WiFi network and the like), a cellularaccess network, a PSTN access network, a cable access network, a wiredaccess network and the like. In one embodiment, the access networks 120and 122 may all be different types of access networks, may all be thesame type of access network or some access networks may be the same typeof access network and other may be different types of access networks.The core network 102 and the access networks 120 and 122 may be operatedby different service providers, the same service provider or acombination thereof.

In one embodiment, the access network 120 may be in communication withone or more user endpoints (also referred to as “endpoints”) 110, 112and 114. In one embodiment, the access network 122 may be incommunication with one or more endpoints 116 and 118. The endpoints 110,112, 114, 116 and 118 may be any type of endpoint devices capable oftelephone communications and/or video conferencing including, forexample, a PSTN telephone, a smart phone, a cellular telephone, alaptop, a tablet device, a desktop computer, and the like. In oneembodiment, the endpoint devices 110, 112, 114, 116 and 118 may employuser agents that use session initiation protocol (SIP).

In one embodiment, the network 100 may include a conference bridge 104,an application server (AS) 106 and a database 108. Although only asingle conference bridge 104, a single application server 106 and asingle database 108 are illustrated, it should be noted that any numberof conference bridges 104, application servers 106 or databases 108 maybe deployed. It should be noted that the network 100 as shown in FIG. 1has been simplified. For example, the core network 102 may comprisenumerous other network elements that are not shown, e.g., borderelements, routers, switches, gateways, firewalls, application servers,databases, call control elements, policy servers, security devices,content distribution servers, and the like. The operations and functionsof these network elements are well known.

In one embodiment, the application server 106 may be in communicationwith the database 108 and the conference bridge 104. In one embodiment,the conference bridge 104 may be in communication with one or more ofthe endpoint devices 110, 112, 114, 116 and 118.

In one embodiment, FIG. 1 illustrates the conference bridge 104, theapplication server 106 and the database 108 being within the corenetwork 102. However, it should be noted that the conference bridge 104,the application server 106 and the database 108 may also be located inany one of the access networks 120 and 122.

In one embodiment, the conference bridge 104 may host a conference callbetween two or more of the endpoints 110, 112, 114, 116 and 118. Theconference bridge 104 may use any type of conference bridge and useauthentication methods currently employed, such as for example,providing an assigned conference bridge telephone number, access codesand the like.

In one embodiment, the application server 106 may be in communicationwith the conference bridge 104 to monitor one or more conference calls.In one embodiment, the application server 106 may employ an eventrecognizer module 130 and an action module 132. The event recognizermodule 130 and the action module 132 may be deployed on a singleapplication server 106 or on different application servers 106.

In one embodiment, the event recognizer module 130 may use voicerecognition and gesture recognition technology to monitor for triggeringevents that are pre-registered by users. In one embodiment, the user maypre-register one or more triggering events. For example, multipletriggering events may be registered by the user and the event recognizermodule 130 may be capable of recognizing multiple triggering eventssimultaneously. Although examples are provided below using only a singletriggering event for ease of illustration, it should not be read aslimiting.

Any known voice recognition or gesture recognition technology may beused. The triggering events are discussed in further detail below. Theevent recognizer module 130 may use any existing voice recognition andgesture recognition technologies available today, e.g., natural languagevoice recognizers as deployed in automatic speech recognition (ASR)systems. In one embodiment, the event recognizer module 130 may monitorthe conference call (broadly to include a telephone conference calland/or a video conference call) to determine if a triggering event hasoccurred.

In one embodiment, the application server 106 may monitor data sent tothe conference bridge via sensors on one or more of the endpoints 110,112, 114, 116 and 118. For example, the endpoints 110, 112, 114, 116 and118 may include sensors such as a compass, a location sensor (e.g.,global positioning system (GPS) receivers), a temperature sensor, anaccelerometer, a video camera, and the like. The application server 106may use the collected data from the sensors to determine if a triggeringevent has occurred.

In one embodiment, the action module 132 may be a combination ofprocesses. For example, the action module 132 may include processes forautomatic sensor recognition (ASR), sensor compilation, eventnotification and the like.

In one embodiment, the action module 132 may take one or more actions ifthe event recognizer module 130 determines that a triggering event hasbeen detected. For example, a user may wish to be notified and providedan option to join the conference call or to receive a recorded portionof the conference call if a pre-registered triggering event is detected.As a result, the action module 132 may send out a notification to a userthat the triggering event has been detected.

Notably, the user who is notified is not a party or a participant in theongoing conference call or may be a participant in a different ongoingconference call. Said another way, the user is not even aware of theexistence of the conference call. For example, the user may be drivingin a car at a remote location while a conference call is ongoing or beparticipating in another different conference call. As a result, whenthe triggering event is detected, the user may be notified on the user'smobile endpoint device (e.g., a cellular phone, a smart phone, a tabletand the like) that a triggering event of interest to the user wasdetected on a conference call. The notification allows the user to beaware of the existence of the conference call and the fact that theconference call may be related to a topic that may be of interest to theuser.

In one embodiment, the notification may be sent via a SIP notificationmessage, a SMS message, a text message, an email message, an automatedtelephone call, and the like. In one embodiment, the notification mayinclude an option to connect the user to the live ongoing conferencecall.

In another embodiment, the notification may include an option to connectthe user to a recorded portion of the conference call containing thetriggering event. For example, the user may listen to the recordedportion of the conference call even after the live conference call hasended. Thus, embodiments of the present disclosure may also provide away to time shift telephone conversations or conference calls.

In one embodiment, the action module 132 may also annotate each sectionof the conference call that includes the triggering event. For example,as discussed in further detail below, the conference call may berecorded and stored in the database 108. Thus, portions of the recordingmay be annotated to include markers (e.g., time stamps or tags and thelike) each time a triggering event is detected by the event recognizermodule 130. In one embodiment, the markers may comprise a bracket oftime before and after the triggering event (e.g., a predefined durationof the recorded portion of the conference call). As a result, if theuser desires to connect to the recording of the conference call, theuser may be provided a portion of the recording before and after thetriggering event. This will allow the user to have information to gaugethe context surrounding the triggering event.

In other words, this helps to provide context to the user in case thetriggering event was a false positive. For example, the user may havepre-registered a key word “apple pie” as a topic of interest. Thus, theuser only wants to be notified when callers are discussing “apple pie”because the user likes “apple pie.” However, the callers on theconference call may actually dislike “apple pie” and may be speakingnegatively about it. However, the event recognizer module 130 woulddetect the key word “apple pie” as a triggering event and instruct theaction module 132 to send a notification to the user. The user may thenselect to connect to the recording of the conference call. The usercould listen to the recorded conference call and determine that “applepie” is actually being discussed negatively within the context of theconference call and decide not to join the live ongoing conference call.In one embodiment, after the user has listened to the recording of theconference call, the user may be presented with the option to join thelive ongoing conference call again.

In one embodiment, the database 108 may store information related to oneor more users associated with the endpoint. For example, in oneembodiment, each user of an endpoint device may elect to subscribe tothe ambient social telephony services. The user may then registertriggering events that are stored in the database 108. It should benoted that in one embodiment, the registration of the triggering eventscan simply be correlated to the “interests” of the user, e.g., similarto interest information disclosed by a user in various social mediawebsites. In other words, a user may simply provide various topics orissues of interests or affiliations (e.g., schools attended by the user,clubs in which the user is a member, and so on). In turn, thecommunications network may automatically generate a listing oftriggering events associated with the user. The communications networkmay then presents this listing to the user to see whether the user wantsto make any adjustments to the listing for the purpose of supporting thepresent ambient social telephony service. Furthermore, the user maysimply provide information to the communications network as to aparticular link of a social media website in which the user's interestshave already been listed, thereby saving the user from having to reenterall the information again.

In one embodiment, the triggering events may include key words, keygestures or key data. For example, key words may include words ofinterest to the user such as their name, a favorite sports team, afavorite food, politicians of interest, and the like. The user mayregister any words that are of interest to them that may be detectedduring a conference call between other users.

In one embodiment, each of the triggering events may also be associatedwith predefined threshold and/or a predefined time period. For example,a user may want to be notified only if the key word “apple pie” is usedthree times within a five minute time period. This may help ensure thatthe triggering event is a significant portion of the conversation andnot just mentioned in passing or a tangent to the overall conversation.

In another example, the user may want to be notified if the key data oftemperature is under 20 degrees Celsius or under 20 degrees Celsius on aparticular day of the week and/or at a particular time in the day. Thus,the triggering events may have some calculus associated with each eventto provide more granularity for the user to control when to be notified.

In one embodiment, key gestures may include various gestures ormovements of interest to the user. For example, the user may beinterested when a caller during a video conference frowns, when a calleris walking while talking, when certain hand signals are used (e.g.,thumbs up, thumbs down, crossing various fingers, raising or pumpingfists, shaking heads up and down, side to side, and the like), and thelike.

In one embodiment, the key data (broadly including key words or keygestures) may include various data taken or derived from documents suchas spreadsheets, slide shows, or video files. For example, the user maybe interested in financial data about the user's company, a particularscientific topic and the like. Thus, a slide show pertaining to theuser's company or a scientific topic can be submitted as key data, andthe key gestures and key words can be extracted from the slide shows.

In another embodiment, the key data may include data related toinformation collected from a sensor on one of the endpoints 110, 112,114, 116 or 118, as discussed above. For example, the user may beinterested in various events when endpoint 110 is in a particulargeographic location, when the endpoint 110 detects a particulartemperature, when the endpoint 110 is moving in a particular directionand the like. For example, when the endpoint is geographically near astadium, the user may be interested in a sports discussion occurring ina conference call pertaining to a sports event being held at thestadium. In other words, the triggering event may require the matchingof data that is received from an endpoint of the particular user. Forexample, the triggering event may comprise a key term of “team A” andwhen the user is within 5 miles of the stadium that “team A” plays in.Thus, a conference call where the discussion revolves around “team A” isnot sufficient to trigger a notification to the user. However, once theuser is physically within 5 miles of the stadium, then the triggeringevent is detected.

In another example, the triggering event may comprise a key term of“power outage” and the condition that the user is in an environment thatis 100 degree Fahrenheit. For example, when the endpoint detects acertain temperature, the user may be interested in a discussionoccurring in a conference call pertaining to possible power outages orbrown outs. Thus, such data pertaining to the various triggering eventswill be sent automatically by the endpoint devices to the communicationsnetwork.

In yet another example, the user may be travelling at a foreign countryand is currently near a particular location. The user may be interestedin conference calls where discussions revolve around that particularlocation, e.g., the user is within 5 miles of a particular touristattraction and the key word is “good restaurant”. Not being familiarwith the area, the user can be joined to a conference call (or hear aportion of a recorded conference call) where participants are currentlydiscussing good restaurants near the tourist attraction and so on. Thisexample can be extended to current entertainment events (e.g., sportsevents, concerts, theatrical shows, and so on) or security issues (e.g.,storm warnings, security threats, and so on) associated with theparticular location. This will quickly provide great insights to theuser for the particular area of a foreign country that the user is notfamiliar with.

FIG. 2 illustrates a flowchart of a method 200 for providing ambientsocial telephony in a communications network. In one embodiment, themethod 200 may be performed by the application server 106 or a generalpurpose computer as illustrated in FIG. 3 and discussed below.

The method 200 beings at step 202. At optional step 204, the method 200registers triggering events of interest to a particular user. Forexample, users may elect to subscribe to the ambient social telephonyservice so that they can be notified when an ongoing conference callincludes topics or events of interest to them. Once the users aresubscribed, each user may register triggering events that are interest.Thus, a database may store and register triggering events that are ofinterest to a particular user among all the registered users. Asdiscussed above, triggering events may include key words, key gesturesor key data.

At step 206, the method 200 monitors a conference call. In oneembodiment, the call may be an audio only conference call. In anotherembodiment, the call may be a video conference call (e.g., having audioand video). For example, two users other than the particular user mayinitiate a conference call in the communications network 100 via theconference bridge 104. In other words, the particular user may not be aparty in the conference call while the conference call is beingmonitored. Furthermore, in one embodiment, the conference call is beingmonitored with the permission of the participants of the conferencecall. For example, the participants on the conference call can be theco-workers of the particular user, the participants on the conferencecall can be the friends or family members of the particular user, or theparticipants on the conference call can be club members of a club thatthe particular user is a member of, and so on. Alternatively, in oneembodiment, the conference call may be a public conference call, e.g., apublic town hall conference call where anyone is allowed to participatein the conference call, e.g., to discuss issues relating to a town.

In one embodiment, the monitoring may be performed by an eventrecognizer module 130. For example, the event recognizer module 130tries to detect triggering events that occur during the conference call.

At step 208, the method 200 detects a triggering event during theconference call for the particular user. In one embodiment, thetriggering event may be detected by the event recognizer module 130.

As discussed above, the triggering events are pre-registered by usersthat elect to subscribe to the ambient social telephony service. In oneembodiment, the triggering events may include key words, key gestures orkey data. For example, key words may include words of interest to theuser such as their name, a favorite sports team, a favorite food,politicians of interest and the like. The user may register any wordsthat are of interest to the user that may be detected during aconference call between other users.

In one embodiment, key gestures may include various gestures ormovements of interest to the user. For example, the user may beinterested when a caller during a video conference frowns, when a calleris walking while talking, when certain hand signals are used and thelike.

In one embodiment, the key data may include various data extracted fromdocuments such as spreadsheets or slide shows. In another embodiment,the key data may include data related to information collected from asensor on one of the endpoints 110, 112, 114, 116 or 118, as discussedabove. For example, the user may be interested in when endpoint 110 isin a particular geographic location, when the endpoint 110 detects aparticular temperature, when the endpoint 110 is moving in a particulardirection and the like.

At step 210, the method 200 notifies the particular user of theoccurrence of the triggering event. Notably, the user who is notified isnot a participant in the ongoing conference call. In other words, theparticular user may not even be aware that the call is ongoing. Forexample, the user may be driving a vehicle at a remote location while aconference call is ongoing. As a result, when the triggering event isdetected, the user may be notified on user's mobile telephone that atriggering event of interest to the user has been detected on a call. Inone embodiment, the notification may be sent by an action module 132. Inone embodiment, the notification may be sent via a SIP-basednotification message, a short message service (SMS) message, a textmessage, an email message, a telephone call and the like.

At optional step 212, the method 200 sends the particular user an optionto join the conference call. In one embodiment, the notification mayinclude an option to connect the user to the conference call or anoption to connect the user to a recorded portion of the conference callcontaining the triggering event. For example, the option to join maysimply include an inquiry as to whether the user wants to press aparticular key on the user's endpoint (or a link can be displayed on ascreen of the user's endpoint) so that a session can be established tothe user's endpoint to join the user to the conference call.Alternatively, the option to join the conference call may simply presentthe conference bridge information, e.g., a phone number and an accesscode, to the user endpoint.

At optional step 214, the method 200 determines whether the particularuser wants to join the conference call. If the method 200 determinesthat the user does not want to the join the conference call, the method200 proceeds to step 218 where the method 200 ends. However, if themethod 200 determines that the user does want to join the conferencecall, the method 200 proceeds to optional step 216.

At optional step 216, the method 200 connects the particular user to theconference call. For example, if the user selected an option to connectto a live portion of the conference call, the user may be connected tothe conference bridge 104 associated with the desired conference call.In another example, if the user selected an option to connect to arecorded portion of the conference call, the user may be connected tothe application server 106 to listen to the recorded portion of theconference call obtained from the database 108. Alternatively, theapplication server 106 may forward an audio file having the pertinentsection of the conference call to the user's endpoint. The method 200ends at step 218.

It should be noted that although not explicitly specified, one or moresteps of the method 200 described above may include a storing,displaying and/or outputting step as required for a particularapplication. In other words, any data, records, fields, and/orintermediate results discussed in the methods can be stored, displayed,and/or outputted to another device as required for a particularapplication. Furthermore, steps or blocks in FIG. 2 that recite adetermining operation, or involve a decision, do not necessarily requirethat both branches of the determining operation be practiced. In otherwords, one of the branches of the determining operation can be deemed asan optional step.

FIG. 3 depicts a high-level block diagram of a general-purpose computersuitable for use in performing the functions described herein. Asdepicted in FIG. 3, the system 300 comprises a hardware processorelement 302 (e.g., a CPU), a memory 304, e.g., random access memory(RAM) and/or read only memory (ROM), a module 305 providing ambientsocial telephony in a communications network, and various input/outputdevices 306 (e.g., sensor devices (such as a thermometer, motion sensor,video camera, voice recorder, and the like) storage devices, includingbut not limited to, a tape drive, a floppy drive, a hard disk drive or acompact disk drive, a receiver, a transmitter, a speaker, a display, aspeech synthesizer, an output port, and a user input device (such as akeyboard, a keypad, a mouse, and the like)).

It should be noted that the present disclosure can be implemented insoftware and/or in a combination of software and hardware, e.g., usingapplication specific integrated circuits (ASIC), a general purposecomputer or any other hardware equivalents, e.g., computer readableinstructions pertaining to the method(s) discussed above can be used toconfigure a hardware processor to perform the steps of the abovedisclosed method. In one embodiment, the present module or process 305for providing ambient social telephony in a communications network canbe loaded into memory 304 and executed by processor 302 to implement thefunctions as discussed above. As such, the present method 305 forproviding ambient social telephony in a communications network asdiscussed above in method 200 (including associated data structures) ofthe present disclosure can be stored on a non-transitory (e.g., tangibleor physical) computer readable storage medium, e.g., RAM memory,magnetic or optical drive or diskette and the like.

While various embodiments have been described above, it should beunderstood that they have been presented by way of example only, and notlimitation. Thus, the breadth and scope of a preferred embodiment shouldnot be limited by any of the above-described exemplary embodiments, butshould be defined only in accordance with the following claims and theirequivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for notifying a particular user, themethod comprising: monitoring, by a processor, an ongoing conferencecall; detecting, by the processor, a triggering event during the ongoingconference call registered for the particular user, wherein theparticular user is not a participant in the ongoing conference call,wherein the ongoing conference call is not scheduled for the particularuser, wherein the triggering event comprises a key gesture of interestto the particular user that is pre-registered by the particular user anddetected during the ongoing conference call between other users on theongoing conference call; and notifying, by the processor, the particularuser to receive a recorded portion of the ongoing conference call inresponse to detecting the pre-registered triggering event.
 2. The methodof claim 1, further comprising: connecting the particular user to theongoing conference call upon receiving a confirmation that theparticular user wants to join the ongoing conference call.
 3. The methodof claim 1, further comprising: receiving a registration of thetriggering event of interest from the particular user before monitoringthe ongoing conference call.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein thedetecting is performed via an automated voice recognition module.
 5. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the detecting is performed via a gesturedetection module.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the notifyingcomprises sending a short message service message to the particularuser.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the ongoing conference callcomprises a video conference call.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein thetriggering event further comprises key data.
 9. The method of claim 1,wherein the triggering event further comprises key data that matchesdata that is received from an endpoint of the particular user.
 10. Anon-transitory computer-readable medium storing a plurality ofinstructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor toperform operations for notifying a particular user, the operationscomprising: monitoring an ongoing conference call; detecting atriggering event during the ongoing conference call registered for theparticular user, wherein the particular user is not a participant in theongoing conference call, wherein the ongoing conference call is notscheduled for the particular user, wherein the triggering eventcomprises a key gesture of interest to the particular user that ispre-registered by the particular user and detected during the ongoingconference call between other users on the ongoing conference call; andnotifying the particular user to receive a recorded portion of theongoing conference call in response to detecting the pre-registeredtriggering event.
 11. The non-transitory computer-readable medium ofclaim 10, the operations further comprising: connecting the particularuser to the ongoing conference call upon receiving a confirmation thatthe particular user wants to join the ongoing conference call.
 12. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, the operationsfurther comprising: receiving a registration of the triggering event ofinterest from the particular user before monitoring the ongoingconference call.
 13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium ofclaim 10, wherein the notifying comprises sending a short messageservice message to the particular user.
 14. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the ongoing conferencecall comprises a video conference call.
 15. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the triggering eventfurther comprises key data that matches data that is received from anendpoint of the particular user.
 16. An apparatus for notifying aparticular user, the apparatus comprising: a processor; and anon-transitory computer readable medium storing a plurality ofinstructions, which when executed by the processor perform operations,the operations comprising: monitoring an ongoing conference call;detecting a triggering event during the ongoing conference callregistered for the particular user, wherein the particular user is not aparticipant in the ongoing conference call, wherein the ongoingconference call is not scheduled for the particular user, wherein thetriggering event comprises a key gesture of interest to the particularuser that is pre-registered by the particular user and detected duringthe ongoing conference call between other users on the ongoingconference call; and notifying the particular user to receive a recordedportion of the ongoing conference call in response to detecting thepre-registered triggering event.
 17. The apparatus of claim 16, theoperations further comprising: connecting the particular user to theongoing conference call upon receiving a confirmation that theparticular user wants to join the ongoing conference call.
 18. Theapparatus of claim 16, the operations further comprising: receiving aregistration of the triggering event of interest from the particularuser before monitoring the ongoing conference call.
 19. The apparatus ofclaim 16, wherein the notifying comprises sending a short messageservice message to the particular user.
 20. The apparatus of claim 16,wherein the ongoing conference call comprises a video conference call.